Monday, June 30, 2008

The Lincoln Journal-Star reports that ESPN's Ivan Maisel rates the 1997 Huskers the "second most overrated national champions" in his upcoming book, "The Maisel Report". I guess he's entitled to his opinion; opinions are like rear ends...everybody's got one. Not sure how much credibility I'd give to a guy who thought that Matt Davison (you know, "Nice Catch, Matt") would have won three Heisman trophies if he'd have switched to quarterback.

Wait a minute... Three Heismans? I've heard that one before... Does the name "Ron Powlus" mean anything to you, Ivan? Or should I call you Beano instead?

Maisel points out two reasons why 1997 Nebraska was undeserving of a title. The Davison "Miracle at Missouri" catch off of Shevin Wiggins' foot, and Tom Osborne announcing his retirement before the Orange Bowl. And to be fair, Osborne's announcement probably convinced a few coaches to switch their vote from Michigan to Nebraska...probably enough to change the outcome of the coaches poll. But if you're going to talk about the Missouri game, you need to be fair and mention Michigan's game against Northwestern as well as the missing final seconds of the Rose Bowl game. Heck...even Brian Griese's dad and Keith Jackson were surprised that the officials walked off the field after the Rose Bowl clock operator let the final seconds run off after Ryan Leaf spiked the ball.

(Fast forward to about 4:30, when Griese exclaims "I think it's over, Keith! The referees are leaving the field!", as he suddenly realizes that his son has just finished his career with an undefeated season.)

If anything, I think you could make a better case for 1997 Michigan to be undeserving... but I doubt that Beano Maisel is going to make that claim in his book.

The World-Herald reported last week that Sarpy County is now actively pursuing the Omaha Royals. Why would Sarpy County pursue the Royals? Hard to say. I still see almost no advantage for a Sarpy County stadium by Cabelas. The economics of the CWS make a lot of sense for the investment by the city, though it took a lot of work to make that financing plan realistic. (And even then, people scoffed at it.) What are the economic benefits to Sarpy County for a new stadium? You won't be able to charge for parking; people will just park at Cabelas. Extra development? That area is already in a growth spurt with Cabelas, hotels, PayPal, etc.

Probably the funniest line in the whole story was the idea that a new stadium could be built for $25 to $30 million. Haymarket Park was built 8 years ago for $30 million, and is about half the size that the Royals would need. (4500 seats vs. 9000 that a AAA team would need.) Sarpy and the Royals probably should plan to spend at least double that amount... maybe more.

Is this serious? Maybe. But more likely, this is just another political stunt and negotiating tactic in the continuing soap opera of Omaha's stadium debate.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Thought I would try to break away for a few days for a nice long weekend; a little swimming, a little biking. Or so I thought when we left on Friday morning. Everything was fine until the phone rang about 5:30 pm with a call from home, letting me know that a big storm had just rolled through town. Power was out over much of Omaha, and trees were everywhere. Concerned, we fired up the laptop and got on the internet to get the details. Surprisingly, the only web site I could connect to for a live stream of weather coverage was WOWT channel 6. (I do have to give them credit for being able to do it, though I do wonder if that might be because most people looked elsewhere because of their history of flubbing coverage.)

We headed out to grab a bite to eat, and just as we left the restaurant, we got the bad news. We worried about my parents house, as their neighborhood has a bad combination of old silver maples and overhead power lines. Turns out to be a mixed report: power was out, but the trees weathered the estimated 110 mph winds fairly well. A few branches down, but nothing serious other than the power, and it seemed most people were without power anybody in Omaha. But we had the damage. Siding was off, and the first report was especially ominous:

"There's a hole in your house!"

So family members rushed over to our house and found a neighbors tree in our driveway and siding fragments all over the place. Fortunately, neighbors were already cleaning up the mess and found out that the "hole" was actually an attic vent that got ripped out when the siding peeled away. They got the vent put back in, and with the old siding underneath the vinyl siding still intact, everything was much better shape than the initial report.

We decided to return home the next morning, and spend the rest of yesterday and today helping to clean up broken tree limbs and dispose of ruined food in refrigerators. Surprisingly, turns out we turned out safer than everybody else in our family, despite the ominous initial report. Power stayed on, so the food was fine. (Everybody else in the family went anywhere from 17 to 47 hours without electricity and had to throw food away.) The siding remnants were quickly cleaned up, and patched when the vent nailed back into place temporarily until I find a siding guy to replace it. None of my trees lost anything larger than a 2-foot long twig.

The big thing about this weekend was hearing about all of the stories of people rushing to help others. We've got photos of several neighbors in our driveway helping clean up the mess, and that's a story all across town. It seems like when things are at their worse, many people are at their best.

A lot of things you read focus on the negative that occurs in our world, but sometimes you've got to stop and recognize that maybe the reason the negative gets so much coverage is that it's the exception to all the good that really exists. Turns out that we didn't really need to come back for our own house; it was secured just fine before we even left to return home. But there was a debt of kindness that needed to be repaid.

"At Nebraska, I'd always take the offensive linemen through the individual periods, and really tried to keep my skills sharp."

Wasn't Dennis Wagner the offensive line coach under Bill Callahan? Oh yeah, right. Didn't he have something to say about working for Bill Callahan?

"He is the head coach," Wagner said. "If he says this is what you do, this is what you do. If you don't, then you have problems within your group. It isn't always that you want to do it that way, but it's the way you're supposed to do it. That's just part of doing the things you're asked to do by the person who hired you."

That doesn't make Bill Callahan a bad football coach, just a bad head football coach. With the Jets, he'll be free to devote his attention towards the offensive line, and in that role, it's likely he'll excel. An anonymous colleague from his days with the Raiders admits that Callahan will do fine as long as he focuses on the offensive line:

"As an offensive line coach, he's as good as there is in the NFL. He's very, very sharp."

Which raises the question...will Bo Pelini fall into the same trap at Nebraska? He's already declared that he would call defenses initially. It's a risk, though there are mitigating factors as he's worked with all of the defensive assistants before. They all know each other and should be on the same page, which is something that didn't appear to be the case under Bill Callahan as that staff was assembled with recruiting in mind.

How Pelini adapts to being a head coach is one of the key factors that will determine how the Huskers will do in 2008.

Monday, June 23, 2008

The big news about this year's College World Series is the attendance...or more accurately, the lack of attendance. It's tough to blame any one factor, but I think it's safe to point out several factors.

Price of Gas and the Economy

Weather

ESPN

Stadium Debate Fatigue

To be sure, it's one think to drive hundreds (thousands?) of miles at $2.50 a gallon. It's another matter to drive that same distance at $4 a gallon. It will be interesting to hear what area hotels report; I'm expecting to hear that they weren't as busy this year as usual. And with many people watching their budgets and worrying about their jobs, many people probably are choosing to sit this year out.

Rain on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night meant delays and postponements of games, and many fans, especially ones with general admission tickets, decided to not chance getting soaked. That's kept the bleachers surprisingly empty.

The biggest factor in my opinion is the recent changes pushed by ESPN. In the past, CWS games started at 7 or 7:30 pm. Then ESPN pushed them back to 6:30 pm. Now it's 6 pm. Only problem with that is that on weekdays, many folks have trouble just getting home by 6 pm.... let alone get home, pick up the kids, and head to the game. The 6 pm starts seemed to be ok the last couple of years, but then ESPN decided to add a few more wrinkles. The opening games got moved from Friday to Saturday, and an extra off-day was added to the schedule... on a weekend, no less. Now the CWS lasts nearly two weeks, from the Friday opening ceremonies to a potential Wednesday final game 12 days later. Good for ESPN's programming department...bad for fans who simply can't afford to devote that much time.

Especially when you can sit on your couch and catch the game in high definition on your TV set, and let ESPN bring you all of the back stories of players and how they got to Omaha. Plus with Omaha set to host the US Olympic swimming trials next week, people are simply metering out their time.

And there's the final bit...all of the discord from the stadium debate carries a price, and I really think this year's series is paying it. It didn't help things when Mayor Fahey tried to remove David Sokol during the series. It's going to take time for people to get over all of the ugliness.

Is this a long term trend? Hard to say. We don't know whether $4 gas is going to be the rule, going to be the high point, or look like a bargain in the future. We don't know if the NCAA will tell ESPN that the previous schedule is coming back...or better yet, abandon the "two bracket" system and go back to the original 8 team double-elimination format. It was abandoned when CBS wanted a single championship game, but now that CBS is out of the picture, we don't have a single championship game anyway. And by eliminating the two bracket system, the matchups vary and we won't see North Carolina and Fresno State play three games against each other.

In recent years, the weather always seemed to clear up when the CWS hits town, so there is a good chance that this year could just be an aberration. And while we'll be slowly saying goodbye to Rosenblatt, the discord of the debate should start quieting down. I still think that in the end, the new stadium will help things out long term. But it might be a little bumpy until we get there.

Friday, June 20, 2008

A few notes while I watch the twice-rain delayed LSU/North Carolina CWS game on TV.

Considering both rain delays, it's surprising to see the stands as full as they are tonight. Attendance may be slightly down this season at the CWS, but that might have more to do with $4 gas making it even more expensive to travel to the games. Some have speculated that the stadium debate soured people on the CWS, though I kind of doubt that.

ESPN did a nice job not covering the streaker who tried to interrupt the ninth inning; kind of broke the tension in a tie game.

Hope the Dawgs from the Georgia Sports Blog have a good visit. (If they don't, they'll probably blame me for my restaurant suggestions...)

Nice feature on incoming UNO freshman hockey player Alex Hudson in the World-Herald. Not only is he breaking ground as the first black hockey player to suit up for the Mavericks, but more importantly, he's going to be adding some needed size and physical play to a Maverick squad that seemed to rely a little too much on speed in recent years.

Out of the corner of my eye at lunchtime, I swore I saw the WWE's Vince McMahon being interviewed on CNBC today. Speaking of fake sports, I see that the NBA is embroiled in a debate over officiating. Some believe Tim Donaghy's charge that the league is fixing games. Others aren't sure. Either way, it's going to take more than a Boston-LA "Finals" to win back the respect the NBA lost many years ago.

OK, now it turns out Tiger Woods won the USA Open with a torn ACL and a couple of stress fractures in his leg? Now that's impressive. I'm not a Woods fan, and I still think he gets way too much attention when he's down the leaderboard. But it's going to be interesting to see how Woods comes back. If he comes back totally healthy, he just might pull off that "Tiger Slam". Or maybe he's developed so much upper body strength that his legs simply are going to be unable to support that swing. It will make a fascinating story next spring.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Almost as surprising as the news that David Sokol was out as chairman of the MECA board was the news yesterday that Mayor Mike Fahey was going to reappoint Sokol anyway. Of course, it came after Omaha's "boosters of substance" threatened to pull their donations from the stadium effort.

In the end, everybody lost here. I'm still trying to understand why Fahey thought he could dismiss Sokol in this situation. Sure, he had the legal right to do so, but after everything that has happened in recent months, some things are better left alone. Sokol was one of those things.

And by reversing field so quickly (and acknowledging that his decision was based on money), he further diminished himself in the eyes of the people of this city.

But let's not forget Sokol and his supporters who are painting Sokol as some sort of victim here. People who claim to follow the "rule of law" seem to be awfully willing to look the other way when Sokol declared himself to no longer be a resident of Nebraska.

Ugly ugly ugly... especially with the NCAA and visitors from across the country in town, this little bit of hick-town politics damaged this city's reputation.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

You thought all the drama over the new downtown stadium was over once the City Council and the NCAA signed all those contracts last week? Guess again. Today, the Omaha World-Herald reported that MECA chairman David Sokol sold his house in February without having a new residence purchased. Ok. Many people sell their old house first, then buy the new one. But for some reason, rather than wait to buy his new residence, he started using his vacation home in Wilson, Wyoming as his address.

The problem with that is that he also cancelled his Nebraska voter registration, saying that he had moved out of Nebraska.

Which, of course, meant that he wasn't eligible to serve on the MECA board.

All this went undetected until a few weeks ago, when the city law department discovered the situation. Friday, Mayor Fahey notified Sokol that his February declaration that he no longer lived in Nebraska ended his term with MECA.

Bottom line is that while Sokol made a huge error by declaring that he "moved out of Nebraska", Fahey is capitalizing on Sokol's mistake. Will that mean more bad blood between the Mayor's office and MECA? Depends on who fills out the remainder of Sokol's term. But it will really set up quite the fight for the Mayor's office, should Fahey decide to run for reelection, as Sokol will definitely support former MECA board member Hal Daub's bid to return to the Mayor's office.

I'm more concerned that these types of political tit-for-tat games will harm the effort to raise funds for the new stadium.

Nebraska is now in the lower half of the Big XII conference in terms of conference titles over the last three years.

If that isn't "gravitating toward mediocrity," then I don't know what is.

After the Masters in April, I criticized the media's obsession with Tiger Woods, as it took away from Trevor Immelman's fantastic story. At the US Open this weekend, it's exactly the opposite. Just weeks after knee surgery, Woods returns to competitive action and limps through four days and forces Rocco Mediate into an 18-hole playoff tomorrow. Both are great stories; one guy who's on the verge of his first major title (and first win in over six years), and another guy who had to use a cart in a practice round a week ago.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Florida State: The poster child for the irrelevence of recruiting rankings. Their Rivals rankings in recent years? 4,21,3,2,3,21,9. Sagarin ratings? 6,16,23,33,40. Hayes sums it up by saying "You can have the high school All-Americans who talk big and play small. I'll take the guys no one wanted who have everything to prove."

Texas: Same song. "But this team isn't close to top 10-caliber; it'll be lucky to stumble into the Cotton Bowl. The culprits: Recruits who haven't panned out. Players such as all-world linebacker Sergio Kindle and five-star defensive end Eddie Jones."

Arizona State: Georgia comes to Tempe, and they have to play at Cal and at USC.

Clemson: He's seen this before... start fast and hyped, end up slow and battling for bowl eligibility.

Texas Tech: Graham Harrell and Michael Crabtree will score on everybody. But Tech's defense looked like Nebraska's at times. They gave up 127 points to Missouri, Texas, and Oklahoma. (Nebraska's horrible 2007 defense gave up 145 to Missouri, Texas, and Kansas.)

Wow! Three years ago, I joined the "blogosphere", partly to experiment with this new phenomenon called "blogs", partly to work on my writing, and partly to have a place to express my contrarian opinions to what was happening with Husker athletics. Thus was born "Blasphemy"... as my opinions certainly weren't politically correct in 2005.

2005. Most Husker sites were eagerly anticipating Harrison Beck's first start at quarterback as Nebraska's top ranked recruiting class was preparing to revolutionize football with recruiting leading the way.

Or so we were told anyway. I wasn't buying it at the time. I remember watching this "NU" era start off with a 5-6 season, a record some blamed on a lack of talent. On defense, one coach lamented the "worst secondary play" he'd ever experienced... yet the NFL ended up using early draft picks on most of those players.

It was blasphemy at that time to second guess the program. And until Thanksgiving 2005, it looked like I was right on... then Bill Callahan's program turned the corner against Colorado. 2006 had it's ups and downs, but nine wins was progress, even if many of the losses left nagging doubts. In the summer of 2007, I quietly wondered if the season progressed the way I wondered it could, I'd have to eat a lot of my words of doubt about Callahan.

Then 2007 happened. The "NU" era suddenly collapsed in an epically horrible fashion, and everything reversed. Tradition returned, and suddenly what was Blasphemous was now in fashion.

AJ the Huskerh8r labeled this the "somewhat sane Husker blog" since I expressed doubts about where Husker football was going. Now that things are changing, I'm much more optimistic about the future. That doesn't mean I'm expecting to go dancing out at 72nd and Dodge next January to celebrate a trophy. But somehow, I expect that AJ's going to drop the "sane" part. At least I'm hoping that Bo Pelini and company will give me plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the future of Husker football.

Anyway, I just wanted to thank those of you who take time to read this blog. While it may not necessarily be considered "blasphemous" anymore, I have no intention to turn pollyanna either. Just like not everything that Bill Callahan and Steve Pederson did was bad, not everything Bo Pelini and Tom Osborne will be good. (Especially if they keep selling DVD's of Pelini's press conferences... Oy!!!)

Sunday, June 08, 2008

Well, gee, just a few days after WOWT-channel 6's Stanley Cup hailstorm fiasco, channel 6's "weather" coverage became even more impossible to understand. On Thursday night, while KMTV-Channel 3 and KETV-Channel 7 were tracking tornadoes as they passed southeast of Omaha, WOWT couldn't bear themselves to break into "Last Comic Standing."

So let me get this straight... Bill Bellamy is more important than the Stanley Cup?

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Then this morning, I awoke to sound of wind and rain blowing in my bedroom window. After quickly getting the windows closed, I clicked on the TV to see what was up, and found only KETV-channel 7 on the air...and their on-screen radar showed one of those rotating thingys about a mile from my house. Then suddenly, KETV's Chuck McWilliams announced the tornado warning, sending me upstairs to fetch my wife and daughter. As I went up the stairs, the sirens began to sound, and we descended to the basement to wait out the storm.

Once downstairs, we fired up the big screen and started watching storm coverage...with KETV-7 being the only station on the air, letting me know details of a damage path that ended within a few blocks of my parents' house. KMTV finally broke into programming about a half-hour late, while it took nearly a full hour for WOWT to break into programming.

Fortunately, the damage at my parents' house was limited to tree damage, knocking out the power. I got to spend my afternoon helping dig out my parents neighborhood from tree limbs, as well as salvage what food could be saved from the refrigerator. They got off lucky...several people lost their homes. And fortunately, nobody appears to have been injured from these storms.

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

After Monday night's epic triple overtime Stanley Cup Final game five, hockey fans were anxiously awaiting tonight's game six in Pittsburgh to see how the Detroit Red Wings would respond to being 35 seconds away from hoisting Lord Stanley's cup, only to let the Penguins tie it and then win it just before midnight.

Mother Nature and WOWT-channel 6 had other plans tonight. With tornadoes rumbling across eastern Nebraska and western Iowa, weather interruptions preempted much of tonight's game. And for good reason... severe weather is much more important than a hockey game or Husker football game.

But by that same measure, if you are going to interrupt regular programming for storm coverage... cover the frickin' storm. For much of the evening, WOWT chose to show Ejacuweather Meteorologist Jim Flowers standing in front of his weather computer. (Thanks to Ted Brockman of the Omaha TV News blog for coining the "Ejacuweather" term!) Super Dooper Mondo Radar? Well, it's in a fuzzy monitor in the background. Pictures of storm damage? How about occasional pans over to anchors John Knicely and Tracy Madden instead.

WOWT did decide to bring back partial coverage of the game with about a minute left in the second period by showing the game in a box covering about half the screen. Which was a fine compromise, except that we still had to look at Jim Flowers face over the rest of the screen. Still no radar images to let us know where the storm was. Just Smiling Jim reassuring us that everything was going to be fine.

Which made it a lose-lose situation for everyone. If you wanted to find out where the storm was, you had to switch over to one of the other Omaha stations. Both KMTV-Channel 3 and KETV-Channel 7 did fine jobs showing us where the storms were at and where they were going. But if you wanted to keep track of the hockey game, you had to deal with Smiling Jim yakking it up.

I will credit Flowers for turning off the continuous coverage late in the third period when it became apparent that the threat of tornadoes had passed. We did get to see Pittsburgh pull within one goal with about 90 seconds left, as well as watch Pittsburgh narrowly miss scoring another game-tying goal as two shots narrowly missed as the the clock expired.

But WOWT dropped the ball tonight. They would have served the public better by either limiting their weather coverage to a simple scroll, or if they were going to preempt the hockey game, show us something other than Jim Flowers face.

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Phil Steele, one of the big names in college football previews, has released his Big XII preseason all conference teams. Who made the list? Marlon Lucky, 1st team RB, wasn't a surprise. Neither are Matt Slauson, 2nd team offensive guard, and Larry Asante, 2nd team safety. (Late correction: Dan Tichener, 2nd team punter) Then, it gets a little interesting. Nate Swift, 4th team wide receiver, is probably a surprise to some, but Swift is a nice possession receiver. Armando Murillo, 4th team cornerback, also gets a mention. Then... here comes the eye-opener, at least to me. Third team defensive end: Zach Potter. Fourth team defensive end: Barry Turner. Fourth team defensive tackle: Ndamakong Suh.

Five defensive players from one of the worst defenses in college football getting a mention for conference honors? What does that mean? Has Phil Steele gone insane? Maybe... or maybe he thinks that Bo Pelini is going to significantly improve this defense. In any event, he's definitely making a case that last season's horrible defense wasn't primarily due to a talent issue. (Especially the defensive line, which was abused most of last season.) Let's compare that to some other defenses in the Big XII: Missouri 4 players (2 1st teamers), Kansas 3 (2 1st teamers), Oklahoma 6 (4 1st teamers), Texas 9 (0 1st teamers but 4 2nd teamers).

If Steele is right...a significant improvement in the Husker defense is very likely in 2008. (What significant means is open to debate...remember, this defense was one of the worst in 2007...)

Sunday, June 01, 2008

Today's 8-0 shutout loss in the NCAA baseball regional pretty much puts a wrap on the 2007-08 Husker sports season. It was a pretty good season for Husker baseball, if you consider where expectations were at the start of the season. Hosting a regional, finishing third in the Big XII... all were better than what was expected.

But...expectations increased, and when Nebraska took two of three from Texas A&M, people started to expect Super Regional and even a CWS berth. Remember back then? The only thing that seemed to be keeping the Big Red from a conference title was that goofy tie against Oklahoma because of the Sooners' bizarre travel plans. So losing the Lincoln Regional is only disappointing because people were hoping for much more. It still was a good season.

So now the really slow period begins. We're still about 13 weeks away from the opening football game. Twenty weeks until hockey season, and about twenty-three weeks until basketball season starts. (And no... the NBA still doesn't count...) No sense in getting in a huge hurry to start looking forward to next season.

Someone asked me recently just I'd be blogging about this summer...and the answer is simple. I have no idea. I don't do this with any grand plans or schedule. It's commentary, pure and simple. And for the most part, it's commentary on what's making news. I don't make it; I just respond to it. The last two summers have been filled with stories of administrators run amok...but for some reason, I don't think that's going to happen this summer as well.

I could tell you it's going to be rather quiet this summer...but inevitably something is going to pop up. I'm hoping to hold off on preseason football talk until at least Independence Day, and preferably a little longer.

About Me

While not a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, I've been a Husker fan all my life. Never bought into the hype of 2004-2007, hence the term "Blasphemy". Now what I wrote then doesn't seem so "Blasphemous" now.
Look for my commentary here and on CornNation. If you aren't a spammer, contact me at hskrfanmike@netscape.net.